Bardsley benefits probe fury

THE woman who triggered the benefits investigation into TV Wife Swap couple Lizzy and Mark Bardsley has criticised its 'lack of action'. Slawka Mitchell prompted the probe last October after the Bardsleys outraged television viewers with their lives on £37,500-a-year hand-outs.

THE woman who triggered the benefits investigation into TV Wife Swap couple Lizzy and Mark Bardsley today criticised its `lack of action'.

Slawka Mitchell prompted the probe last October after the Bardsleys had outraged television viewers with their comfortable lives on £37,500-a-year state hand-outs.

She called a fraud hotline and provided documentary evidence, claiming that Mr Bardsley carried out £1,352 cash-in-hand building work on her home - while he was drawing £4,446-a-year in incapacity benefits.

Mrs Mitchell also claimed that she telephoned Mrs Bardsley at their Rochdale home to arrange a time for the work to be done.

But four months later, fraud investigators have still not taken any action and mother-of-eight Lizzy, 30, is now set to make a return to our television screens in a new reality show.

She is in negotiations to appear in a Channel 5 programme called Back To Reality, which will team her up with former Big Brother contestants Jade Goody and Nick Bateman, royal love rat James Hewitt and Pop Idol reject Rik Waller.

The programme starts next Saturday and runs for three weeks with contestants voted out by the public.

In the meantime, the cost of the Department for Works and Pensions' investigation to the taxpayer is now estimated at more than £10,000. Mrs Mitchell, 49, said: "It is so annoying to see the Bardsleys constantly in the magazines and on TV when nothing has been done about them.

"And now the taxpayer is paying out even more for the investigation.''

MP Paul Goodman, Conservative spokesman on benefits, said he was astonished by the failure to put together a case against the Bardsleys.

He said: "I find it difficult to understand why the Department for Work and Pensions has taken so long with this case."

Mrs Mitchell claimed she hired Mr Bardsley, 33, to build a chimney at the rear of her home in Royton at about the same time as Wife Swap was being filmed last June.

She was astonished to see him appear on TV shortly afterwards, telling viewers he had not worked for three years because he had become depressed following his father's death.

It emerged that he had been claiming £4,446-a-year incapacity benefit during his extended period of mourning.

Documents alleging that Mr Bardsley had actually been doing cash-in-hand building work at Mrs Mitchell's home were swiftly passed to the Department for Work and Pensions by the M.E.N.

They included a hand-written invoice for £1,352.66 which was signed by "M. Bardsley" and two illustrated leaflets which advertised Mr Bardsley's services as a builder, complete with his mobile and home telephone numbers.

Our dossier also included an itemised phone bill which showed Mrs Mitchell had spoken to Mr Bardsley on the phone at the time he completed the work.

Her personal testimony that Mr Bardsley had worked on her home was backed up by her daughter Samantha, who had seen him at the house.

She also claimed that she contacted Mrs Bardsley on the phone to arrange a time for the work to be done. Mr Bardsley denied having ever met Mrs Mitchell when the allegations were put to him last October.

His wife Lizzy refused to comment when approached by the M.E.N. at the family's home in Milnrow.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the investigation into the Bardsleys was still continuing.

But he refused to give any reason for the lack of progress.

The spokesman said he could not comment in detail on the case because the information had to be kept secret under the Data Protection Act.